ICC OPEN MARKETS INDEX 2017

The fewer the barriers to the cross-border flow of goods, services, capital and labour, the greater the openness of an economy. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) publishes the Open Markets Index (OMI) with the aim of presenting a balanced and reliable measurement of an economy’s openness to trade. ICC hopes that the OMI may serve as a guide for governments in implementing reforms to enable trade as a driver of sustainable growth and job creation.

The period covered by the report concludes at the end of 2015, as not all economic indicators for 2016 were reported by the economies at the time of compilation. The report therefore shows results from a period of trade and investment that led to a gradual slowdown in global trade growth (1.3% for 2016).

The OMI 2017 set out in this report covers four main areas of focus, which are further split across 23 indicators intended to cover factors of openness in each area.

The four main components of OMI 2017 are:

Observed openness to trade

Trade policy settings

Foreign direct investment (FDI) openness

Trade-enabling infrastructure

As with earlier versions of the OMI, due to complexity and data availability, the OMI 2017 does not address restrictive private business practices, or behind-the-border measures such as subsidies.

A detailed overview of the four main components and key indicators within each component is provided in Annex I.

The economies selected for the study include all G20 economies, all EU member states, and a mix of lower, middle and upper-income economies. When taken together the OMI 2017 represents 90% of trade and investment worldwide. Detailed profiles on each of the 75 economies selected are published in addition to this report.